Welcome to the 309th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the penultimate of January. From a difficulty standpoint, this week's is no joke. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of all three mystery clips, which are connected by a theme – the theme needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday, or as soon as necessary. Good luck!

Hint: Sometimes you have to read the show notes to figure out the MJM.

Answer: W for WOW. @wforwumbo won his first MJM (#288) in August 2017, identifying the 11/27/96 "Diseezer." At the time, I had no idea he'd end up breaking MJM records... after nine winless weeks, @wforwumbo reemerged to claim his second MJM (#298), and a few weeks later, he started his record-breaking streak of winning four consecutive MJMs, #302 - #305. With this week's win, his seventh overall, and six in the past 12 MJMs, @wforwumbo has also set the record for fewest MJMs from first to seventh win: 22 MJMs. For his efforts, not only will he be providing next week's puzzle, but he'll also receive his customary key to The Vault, backstage passes to the show of my choosing this summer (but I won't be telling him which show it is), the password to MIke's Hotline's voicemail, VIP access to the Phish.net staff tent city at Watkins Glen, and of course, he'll be added to the group text with Trey, Mike, Page, Fish, and the other 15 MJM Emeritus champions. Either that, or another LivePhish code. Definitely one or the other. Congrats!

I'm not guessing this one. The first one I know, I think I have a line for the second (even if it's not proved to be the right one so far), but the third one is just a "needle in the hay" kind of situation for me. All piano solos sound the same to me!

Wow, I DID read the show notes for 6/22/12 and also listened to the Poor Heart and Moma Dance fuck up banter just for fun, but it never crossed my mind THAT could be the theme! Nice one!

I knew the first jam right off the bat and found the third jam with ~an hour of searching yesterday, so once the hint was posted it was a gimme on my end. But yeah I had no idea what the theme was either until the hint, I was originally thinking (like @perpg posted) that the theme was teases but I also knew that would be WAAAAAY too broad of a theme.

Well in my haste to be first to the draw I didn't finish the second jam. It's Bowie > JBG > Bowie. But you still get the idea, and besides the jam is between the first Bowie and JBG anyway...

FWIW 7/3/95 Bowie would've been enough and is what I consider the most correct answer, though as you point out, the clip I chose is right before JBG starts. But I also accept Bowie > JBG, and Bowie > JBG > Bowie. If you had just sad JBG I would have had to think on it...

Omg that Twist. Are u kidding me??? How in the world did I not hear this before.

2012 (particularly summer leg 2, but really the entire year) is filled with loads of amazing jams, many of them deeper than this twist. I’ve always been a bit flummoxed as at the time I remember people speaking highly of it but after fall ‘13 it seemed to have been swept under the rug. Feel free to drop me a line if you want more hidden gems from the year.

That Twist is pretty darn deep though... and it's from Leg 1. 2012 has some of my favorite 3.0 Phish jamming, but there's no question that there started to be a lot more jamming per show as the years rolled on. Still there are zones from 2012 that they haven't returned to since.

Topical theme eh? My old college buddy was at the tour closer for summer 95 and they wound up aborting a Lizards for BBCFFM. That's rough.

Though I had considered a Roe vs. Wade style hint (before deciding I didn't need to get unnecessarily edgy on the front page), this theme was completely organic. I ran across an old forum thread of mine posted on 6/23/12, asking what had happened the night before with Poor Heart and Moma, and why they were aborted. Then I realized the big Twist was also that night and hadn't been used as an MJM clip, and saw that Poor Heart and Moma weren't even listed in the setlist (because they were cut so short), so I searched for other shows featuring aborted songs and realized the big crazy Bowie hadn't been used either. As they say, "the rest, as they say, is history."

Topical theme eh? My old college buddy was at the tour closer for summer 95 and they wound up aborting a Lizards for BBCFFM. That's rough.

Though I had considered a Roe vs. Wade style hint (before deciding I didn't need to get unnecessarily edgy on the front page), this theme was completely organic. I ran across an old forum thread of mine posted on 6/23/12, asking what had happened the night before with Poor Heart and Moma, and why they were aborted. Then I realized the big Twist was also that night and hadn't been used as an MJM clip, and saw that Poor Heart and Moma weren't even listed in the setlist (because they were cut so short), so I searched for other shows featuring aborted songs and realized the big crazy Bowie hadn't been used either. As they say, "the rest, as they say, is history."

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